Labor Day 2011

So I know I'm behind on blogging and you're all hoping for Halloween pictures, but I just realized that I never blogged about Labor Day, so let's get that out of the way first.

This year we were, as usual, up at our trailer for Labor Day weekend.  Which would have been perfect except for one thing...the opening game of the BSU football season.  We really didn't want to miss it, and thanks to my stud of a husband, no worries...he just rigged up an old dish to work out in the middle of nowhere...and he was pretty proud of himself, to say the least. :)  So was I.  He's pretty much amazing.

We made a lot of instant friends the night of the game.  Tim's brother and his wife, Tim's parents, my niece and her family, our family, and 2 other families that were camping there all sat around the t.v. and watched.  It was pretty fun!  And it was really great that BSU spanked Georgia!!  Go Broncos!

Jake was an awesome fan!  He cheered and cheered.  I had just gotten him this cool new BSU hat, which he wouldn't take off.  And every time someone said "Go...," he would reply, "Broncos."  And if you said, "Boise," he would say, "State."  Everyone was pretty impressed!  He's just so stinkin' cute!

Here's Jake trying out his cousin Hunter's pop gun.  He LOVED it!  He was pretty excited to get one for his birthday a few weeks later!

Our family went with my niece, Brittney's family and Tim's parents up to Dagger Falls.  I had never been before.  It was really pretty.  We all took picnics with us and spent a few hours there.

We found a place to walk down to the river, and let Molly fetch sticks.  She got worked really hard!  There was one time the stick went pretty far and she had to swim back against the current, and I think Tim was a little scared that she might not make it back, but I think she could have done that all day.

The kids had fun just being in nature--especially climbing up the steep hill.  Sydney was determined to make it back up the hard way, and she did.  Jake kept his sunglasses on pretty much the whole day. :)

July 4th

For the 4th of July, we went up to our trailer for 5 days.  It was so nice to have 5 days with no phone calls, laundry or video games.  Of course, there was plenty of laundry when we came home.

We had a great time.  Our friends and neighbors, the Tufts, came up, too, along with Tim's parents, Josh and Brittney, Cody and Lindsay, Daniele and Matthew, and Kip and Sabrina.  It was fun to have so many people there.

We went fishing and swimming, and rode the 4 wheeler.  On the 4th, the kids and I painted shirts.  Tim was a party pooper and didn't want to, so note his BSU shirt instead.  We went with Josh and Brittney and their kids to Red Fish Lake and then watched the fireworks in Stanley, then came home the next day.  The kids loved playing on the beach!  Pardon my hair--this was my 4th day w/ no hair dryer or flat iron.  Good thing I wasn't a pioneer!

Grasshoppers make great fish bait!

We went up to Grandjean over Labor Day Weekend for one last visit and to bring the trailer home. We went fishing at Lowman Ponds, but couldn't get any bites. Tim saw a grasshopper, and told one of the boys to catch it. On his hook it went, and grasshopper-baiting was born. Suddenly fish were being caught!

It was seriously the BEST entertainment watching Tim and Brandon trying to catch grasshoppers! Wally had a rake for them to use, which helped. They would stalk the little things, try to get close enough to strike, and hit them with the rake to stun them. They worked like a charm, though, and that reminds me--we still have trout in the freezer that need to be eaten!

Sydney wasn't too interested in fishing. Instead, she wanted to do what every little girl dreams of--catch frogs! I knew she had no chance of being overly-girly with 3 brothers... She caught like 30 or 40. It was crazy! She even shared some of them with her cousin, Hunter. They were pretty cute--for frogs.... They were only about an inch long each.

She needed somewhere to keep her growing collection, so she improvised and used her camp-chair sack. I'm guessing not many girls use their Disney princess camping chair for that use!

What good would a post be without a picture of Little Man?!? And yes, he's really that cute!

Fourth of July

For the Fourth of July, we went to the trailer and spent 5 days there. I'm pretty sure that's the longest I've ever been camping for. Thankfully there was a pool and shower. :)

We had a great time. Lots of other Brysons were there, plus our friends, the Lewises came up with their trailer for the weekend. It was great to have lots of other kids for our kids to play with. We rarely saw Ryan. He was always in the woods with Conner and Cullen shooting his BB gun. That kid has finally decided that maybe it won't be so bad to be a hunter someday. That makes Tim REAL happy. :)

On the 4th, we drove up to Stanley (my first trip there) to see Red Fish Lake and watch fireworks later that night. The lake was beautiful, despite all the mosquitoes, and we vowed to go back later this summer and spend a whole day there. The fireworks show was surprisingly good. They lasted over half an hour. We even convinced Uncle Kippy to come and watch them with us, nothing short of a miracle. Stanley fireworks on July 4th might have to be a new family tradition...

I decided to make a collage of each of the kids rather than post a gajillion pictures on here. These are some of my favs. For those of you who don't know (I'm talking to you, Brittany Nicole, haha), you can click on each collage from Blogger and it will make it full-screen so you can see it better.

First off is Brandon. He's trying to get enough nights in a tent for his camping merit badge, so he set one up and that was his home for the whole time we were there. It sure makes our trailer seem bigger with one less person! He had a Harry Potter book with him on this trip, so he hung out in his tent and read a lot, but he did come out to play occasionally.

And now for Ryan. I realized I didn't have quite as many photos to choose from for him, since he was always back in the woods with his BB gun... He did make three big memories on this trip though.

1: Accidentally falling into Bull Trout Lake while we were fishing--fully clothed (and it was quite chilly that morning...). Oh, that I had had the camera with me then! It was pretty hilarious! I'm glad he's a good swimmer!

2: Shooting his first bird.

3: Losing his first molar.

All in all, a very memorable trip for him!

Now for my girlie.

***Disclaimer: never-mind her hair...I DON"T do it when we're camping!***

She LOVES camping!!! Especially when there are a lot of people there! She especially enjoyed playing with Caylee and the Lewis's dog Bella. Our dog, Molly, is way too hyper to let you lay on her back, but Bella would just let Sydney climb all over her and was cool with that. Syd loved it! She also loved making her patriotic shirt with Desiree. Tim and I had gone on a 4-wheeler ride, and when we came back, Des had all this paint and sponges and shirts out and was being all crafty with all the kids. I sure wish I was a cool mom like that...maybe next year!

And now for Jakey. Tim and I were remembering the other day how hard it was to go camping with him last year. He wasn't walking yet, so you had to hold him like ALL THE TIME. This year he has done awesome, though. He and Hunter, his cousin, get along really well, and he sleeps awesome in his little crib. He wanted to shoot guns like the big boys, so he would find a stick, hold it up in front of his face, and pretend to shoot. It was so cute! He also really did good with the fireworks. I was afraid he would be too scared, but he seemed to like them.

Our summer home

For many years, Tim's parents and some other members of his family have been parking their camper trailers for the whole summer in the mountains at a place called Grandjean. We've been up several times and love it there. The best part is the hot springs pool that our kids thoroughly enjoy (never mind that one time many, many years ago when Brandon puked in it...). This year, we joined the bandwagon and left our little trailer up there for the summer. Mostly because Tim drew a mountain goat tag not far from there and wants to be able to scout out the area whenever possible. It's not something we were planning on doing this year, but we've been up twice now and have really enjoyed the convenience of the whole thing so far. I'm sure we'll make a lot of great memories, which is the main goal in my opinion.

Some fun things the kids did were go for rides with Dad on the 4-wheeler, lots of swimming, BB gun shooting, playing with cousins in our "neighbors'" sandbox, building a fire pit, hiking, playing games, and fishing. And eating s'mores, of course...

Our spot up there had a fire pit once upon a time, but had been almost completely covered up with dirt and such. We really wanted our own little fire spot, so that was our project last weekend. Tim brought a few shovels up with us, and the boys carried, rolled, and kicked big rocks we found to help make it. One of my favorite pics is the one of Syd with her shovel--she's totally posing--why am I surprised?? Anyway, our fire pit turned out awesome and did the job once it was time for the campfire that evening. I look forward to many more nights around that fire pit...

When we were trying to decide on Ryan's name 10 long years ago, Tim really wanted to name him Ryan Fisher (after all, Brandon's middle name is Hunter, and he wanted to continue the theme...). I refused and eventually won that battle. Perhaps I should have let him have his way. That boy loves to fish! He caught several the first night and I cooked them for dinner, and he also loved eating them (note the fish scale in one pic). The only downside to the whole fishing experience was Ryan "hooking" his finger. He didn't like that too much, to say the least... I think next time he'll be a little more careful when removing moss from his hook.

All in all, it was a great weekend and I'm sure there will be many more to come.